על אברהם ל״הOn Abraham 35
א׳
1[191] Let them, therefore, set bolt and bar to their unbridled evil-speaking mouths, control their envy and hatred of excellence and not mar the virtues of men who have lived a good life, virtues which they should rather help to glorify by their good report.
ב׳
2That the deed really deserves our praise and love can easily be seen in many ways.
ג׳
3[192] First, then, he made a special practice of obedience to God, a duty which every right-minded person holds to be worthy of all respect and effort. Hitherto he had not neglected any of God’s commands, nor ever met them with repining or discontent, however charged with toils and pains they might be, and therefore he bore the sentence pronounced on his son with all nobleness and firmness.
ד׳
4[193] Secondly, since human sacrifice was not in that country, as it was perhaps in some, sanctioned by custom which is so apt through constant repetition to weaken the realization of the terrible, he would have been the first himself to initiate a totally new and extraordinary procedure, and this, to my mind, is a thing which no one could have brought himself to do even if his soul had been made of iron or adamant, for, as it has been said, it is hard work to fight against nature.
ה׳
5[194] And, as he had begotten no son in the truest sense but Isaac, his feeling of affection for him was necessarily on the same high level of truth, higher even than the chaste forms of love and also the much talked-of ties of friendship.
ו׳
6[195] Further, he had a most potent incentive to love in that he had begotten the boy in his old age and not in his years of vigour. For parents somehow dote on their late-born children, either because they have longed for their birth for so many years or because they do not hope to have any more, since nature comes to a halt at this point as its final and furthermost boundary.
ז׳
7[196] For a father to surrender one of a numerous family as a tithe to God is nothing extraordinary, since each of the survivors continues to give him pleasure, and this is no small solace and mitigation of his grief for the one who has been sacrificed. But one who gives his only darling son performs an action for which no language is adequate, since he concedes nothing to the tie of relationship, but his whole weight is thrown into the scale on the side of acceptability with God.
ח׳
8[197] The following point is exceptional, and his conduct in it is practically unique. Other fathers, even if they give their children to be sacrificed for the safety of their country or armies, either stay at home or stand far away from the altars, or, if they are present, turn away their eyes, since they cannot bear the sight, and leave others to kill the victim.
ט׳
9[198] But here we have the most affectionate of fathers himself beginning the sacrificial rite as priest with the very best of sons for victim. Perhaps too, following the law of burnt offering, he would have dismembered his son and offered him limb by limb. Thus we see that he did not incline partly to the boy and partly to piety, but devoted his whole soul through and through to holiness and disregarded the claims of their common blood.
י׳
10[199] Which of all the points mentioned is shared by others? Which does not stand by itself and defy description? Thus everyone who is not malignant or a lover of evil must be overwhelmed with admiration for his extraordinary piety; and he need not take into consideration at once all the points which I have mentioned, for any single one of them would be enough. For to picture in the mind one of these, however small the form which the picture takes, though no action of the Sage is small, is enough to show the greatness and loftiness of his soul.